The University of Delaware is a privately governed, state-assisted land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 master's programs, and 55 doctoral programs across its eight colleges. The main campus is in Newark, with satellite campuses in Dover, Wilmington, Lewes, and Georgetown. It is considered a large institution with approximately 18,200 undergraduate and 4,200 graduate students. It is a privately governed university which receives public funding for being a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant state-supported research institution.
Inertial electrostatic confinement, or IEC, is a class of fusion power devices that use electric fields to confine the plasma rather than the more common approach using magnetic fields found in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) designs. Most IEC devices directly accelerate their fuel to fusion conditions, thereby avoiding energy losses seen during the longer heating stages of MCF devices. In theory, this makes them more suitable for using alternative aneutronic fusion fuels, which offer a number of major practical benefits and makes IEC devices one of the more widely studied approaches to fusion.
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors.
The hydrogen economy is an umbrella term that draws together the roles hydrogen can play alongside renewable electricity to decarbonize specific economic sectors, sub-sectors and activities which may be technically difficult to decarbonize through other means, or where cheaper and more energy-efficient clean solutions are not available. In this context, hydrogen economy encompasses hydrogen’s production through to end-uses in ways that substantively contribute to avoiding the use of fossil fuels and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
In the 19th century, it was observed that the sunlight striking certain materials generates detectable electric current – the photoelectric effect. This discovery laid the foundation for solar cells. Solar cells have gone on to be used in many applications. They have historically been used in situations where electrical power from the grid was unavailable.
A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect. It is a form of photoelectric cell, a device whose electrical characteristics vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as "solar panels". The common single-junction silicon solar cell can produce a maximum open-circuit voltage of approximately 0.5 to 0.6 volts.
A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that generate electrons when exposed to light. The electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct current (DC) electricity, which can be used to power various devices or be stored in batteries. Solar panels are also known as solar cell panels, solar electric panels, or PV modules.
Martin Andrew Green is an Australian engineer and professor at the University of New South Wales who works on solar energy. He was awarded the 2021 Japan Prize for his achievements in the "Development of High-Efficiency Silicon Photovoltaic Devices". He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics.
Allen M. Barnett was a research professor of electrical engineering at the University of Delaware. He was the principal investigator of the DARPA-funded Consortium for Very High Efficiency Solar cells. Barnett was the founder and CEO of solar-cell producer Astropower, Inc. He was also a Professor of Advanced Photovoltaics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) in Sydney Australia.
Harry Albert Atwater, Jr. is an American physicist and materials scientist and is the Otis Booth Leadership Chair of the division of engineering and applied science at the California Institute of Technology. Currently he is the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science and the director for the Liquid Sunlight Alliance (LiSA), a Department of Energy Hub program for solar fuels. Atwater's scientific effort focuses on nanophotonic light-matter interactions and solar energy conversion. His current research in energy centers on high efficiency photovoltaics, carbon capture and removal, and photoelectrochemical processes for generation of solar fuels. His research has resulted in world records for solar photovoltaic conversion and photoelectrochemical water splitting. His work also spans fundamental nanophotonic phenomena, in plasmonics and 2D materials, and also applications including active metasurfaces and optical propulsion.
Andrew Blakers is a Professor of renewable energy engineering at the Australian National University. He has contributed to several innovations in solar photovoltaic technology, including PERC solar cells. Blakers has secured many research grants and won several awards.
MiaSolé is an American solar energy company selling copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film photovoltaic products. MiaSolé's manufacturing process lays CIGS on a flexible stainless steel substrate. MiaSolé produces all layers of photovoltaic material in a continuous sputtering process.
Thin-film solar cells are made by depositing one or more thin layers of photovoltaic material onto a substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are typically a few nanometers (nm) to a few microns (µm) thick–much thinner than the wafers used in conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) based solar cells, which can be up to 200 µm thick. Thin-film solar cells are commercially used in several technologies, including cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), and amorphous thin-film silicon.
The Argonne–Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center is a joint research program between the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University. Michael R. Wasielewski, Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern founded the ANSER center in 2007 and is its current director. The center's goal is to develop the fundamental understanding, materials, and methods necessary to create efficient and economically viable technologies for solar fuels and electricity production. The union of synthesis, measurement, theory, and engineering allows ANSER to create exceptional new energy conversion systems. As part of its $777 million effort to establish Energy Frontier Research Centers, Grants provided by the US Department of Energy will enable the ANSER "to analyse photosynthesis for ways to create more efficient photovoltaic cells and create hybrid solar cells that have both organic and inorganic components."
ARPA-E, or Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy is a United States government agency tasked with promoting and funding research and development of advanced energy technologies. It is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The energy sector of Ohio consists of thousands of companies and cities representing the oil, natural gas, coal, solar, wind energy, fuel cell, biofuel, geothermal, hydroelectric, and other related industries. Oil and natural gas accounts for $3.1 billion annually in sales while ethanol generates $750 million. Toledo is a national hub in solar cell manufacturing, and the state has significant production of fuel cells. In 2008, the state led the country in alternative energy manufacturing according to Site Selection Magazine, while the natural gas industry has experienced growth due to the expansion of shale gas.
There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be categorized into three areas: making current technology solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other energy sources; developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs; and developing new materials to serve as more efficient energy converters from light energy into electric current or light absorbers and charge carriers.
Patrick Timothy Harker is the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Harker previously served as the President of University of Delaware. He was the dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2007. He began his presidency of the University of Delaware in 2007 and resigned in 2015.
Dionissios N. "Dennis" Assanis is a Greek academic administrator, scientist, engineer and author. He is the 28th president of the University of Delaware, a position he has held since June 6, 2016.
The Clean Energy Institute (CEI) is a research institute at the University of Washington. Founded in 2013, the institute maintains several facilities across the university's Seattle campus and supports renewable energy technology research, education, entrepreneurship, and outreach. The institute is under the direction of Daniel T. Schwartz, PhD.
